


deafened by the silence

by Chicken_Flakes_Writes



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, IPRE Crew | Starblaster Crew as Family, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team as Family, The Stolen Century Cycle 65: The Judges' World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:29:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicken_Flakes_Writes/pseuds/Chicken_Flakes_Writes
Summary: Cycle 65 was lonely for Lucretia. Although, calling that cycle lonely was a understatement. It was the worst cycle and the loneliness she felt was soul-crushing. She tried not think about it.
Kudos: 1





	deafened by the silence

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Astronaut by Simple Plan.

They have just entered a new plane, after escaping a plane that was pretty rough on all of them. They lost Merle early on to another parlay, so they were down a healer. Then they lost Magnus, who was their best fighter. Sure, the others could hold their own, but they did not have the hit points that he did. They even lost Davenport later into the cycle, which meant someone would have to pilot the ship when the cycle would come to an end.

  
Barry took to the wheel, with him as a scientist, and engineer, it made sense. He managed to fly them away, but it was a close call. They barely made it.

  
As soon as they were into the new plane and they saw Magnus, Merle, and Davenport back in their spots, everyone let out a sigh of relief. They all looked at each other, a smile on their faces. That smile said everything it needed to and it was a familiar one to them all. It said, “We missed you, we love you, it's great to have you back.” Davenport took the wheel from Barry, who happily gave it to him.

  
Barry turned to look out the window to see what this new plane had to offer him and the rest of his family, and he saw tents that have seen better days, campfires outside of those tents, and only saw one river and one lake as they flew over. There were no tree, and the ground appeared to be all rock.

  
They had flown around for a few hours before they saw a city made of white marble on a hill. This city had lush green lawns that stretched for miles, and a huge lake as well. And in the center of the city, was 4 large, really really large, humanoid statues.

  
Davenport says, “Should we land here, check out this place?”

Magnus replies, “This place looks so boring.”

  
“I agree, but we still need to learn about this world, see what we are up against.”

  
Taako replies, “I do not like the way this world appears, but we need to learn something about this new plane. As Davenport says, we need to know what we are up against.”

  
Merle says, “Yeah, I agree.”

  
“I just don't want it to be in this city ya know? I think it would be best done outside where I imagine we can find more answers than this city on the hill thing they've got going on.”

  
“Yeah, for sure.” Lup agrees with a nod.

  
Davenport pilots the ship towards a different area of the world to find a place to land when they all start hearing a low buzz. And soon, they see a flash of light, feel heat on their faces, and a huge clap of thunder. Lucretia feels herself falling down to the floor of the Starblaster. She is fighting against losing consciousness but she manages to stay awake as she sees all of her family around her fall to the floor, and feels the Starblaster, their home, hit the ground with a tumultuous thud on the rocky ground.

  
Lucretia, laying on the floor of the Stablaster, feels it slide on the ground and she watches as her family slides towards the new hole in its side that was created by whatever blasted them out of the sky. Lucretia grabs onto the bridge to prevent herself from sliding towards the hole with the rest of her family. Soon, the Starblaster is stopped and she stands, looking out the hole. Her family appears to be fine and she begins to make plans to bring them back on board but in the distance, she sees people approaching the ship at a rapid pace. She can only assume they do not have good intentions. She takes a quick inventory of her injuries and she knows she would not be able to get any of them back on board in her current condition and definitely not in the time she has left. Already, the group of people are so much closer and she simply does not have the time or strength to help them. She can only hope that they can get out of this on their own. She looks at them one more time , the words, 'I’m sorry' running through her mind, before she runs to the controls of the ship and does her best to get it up in the air. It's rough, she has never flown the ship before but she has watched Davenport do it many times now, so she manages to do it.

With the damage the ship has sustained, their ship does not fly nearly as well as it should, especially not with her at the controls. She cant help but think Davenport would be able to do it, but she banishes that grim thought her mind quickly. She can’t be distracted. Not right now.

  
She looks ahead at the land around her looking for a place to land. She does not want it to be near anyone. She needs to be alone. She has a bad feeling about this place and she does not trust it right now.

  
She finally finds a place to land, no one to be seen for miles. She tries to gently land the Starblaster, but it is not gentle and lands with a loud bang against the rocky ground. She was far away from the city and most of those tent towns that she saw. She turns the engine off, stands in the ship, alone, and collapses against the nearest wall, sobs falling out of her in waves. She curls up into a tight ball, and just cries. Her sobs echoed throughout the empty ship and eventually she began to quiet down. She does not know how long she was crying, but she feels it was a long time, probably too long but she does not dwell on it. She stands up, wipes the few tears that remain and gets to work.  
She starts by looking at the hole in the wall, and goes down to where they keep the scrap metal from one of the early cycles, and attaches it to the wall to cover up the hole. The fix is rough, very rough, but it would have to do. Davenport or Magnus can fix it when they come back. They will make it look like there was never a hole there to begin with.  
She then moves to the kitchen and splashes her face with cold water. It washes her tears away and makes her feel a bit better after her cry, but a few sniffles still escape without her permission.

  
She ignores the sniffles, and grabs a bowl. She looks in the cupboard for a pack of fantasy ramen, grabs it and puts it in the bowl with some water. It's not the healthiest meal by any means, or the best thing she could eat by any means, but she did not have the effort to put into making real food right now. After the fantasy microwave dings, she grabs the bowl with a towel and takes it to the deck of the Starblaster. She wanted some fresh air, and the thought of sitting in the kitchen without Taako present hurt, so out she went.

  
Lucretia stares into the distance as she eats her ramen, somewhat zoned out, but she didn’t see anything so she quickly finished her bowl. ‘What is she going to do? Her friends are gone, she does not know if they will come back this cycle, and the people of this plane are not friendly as far as she can tell. So what is she going to do next?’

  
Lucretia returned to her room for the night as it got dark and laid in her bed, her eyes filled with sleep. But as she continued lying there, sleep would not come. She was used to the ship having a lot more noise. Barry frequently stayed up late experimenting, Lup with him a lot as well. Taako spent a lot of the time baking in the kitchen or listening to music in his room. Merle snored and so did Magnus. Davenport was quiet at night but just hearing him moving around was comforting. But now, there was none of the noise of other people. It was just her. Alone. Frustrated, she grabbed her pillow and a blanket and moved out to the deck of the Starblaster. She had always found the deck to be relaxing, and she hoped it would help her go to sleep.

She did eventually fall asleep, but it was restless. Her days became a pattern. She made repairs to the ship, studied the controls, made quick meals, and then slept restlessly on the deck. It was on one of these restless nights that heard something in the distance. She looks up from her nest towards the sounds, and she sees a glow on the horizon but she knows that glow is not the sun. It rises on the other side of the world here. She listens closer, and hears the sound of people. As they get closer, she sees torches, and weapons on their backs.

  
She sprints out of her nest, towards the controls of the Starblaster, and hopes her repairs and studying the controls have actually helped.

  
She turns the ship on, grabs the controls, and manages to fly the ship away from there. The takeoff was not smooth, but it was better than the last time she had to take off in the Starblaster. She can only hope that her repairs will hold.

  
She flies for the rest of the night and most of the next day. She finally finds a relatively barren place to land and desperately hopes she wasn’t followed.

  
She was followed.

  
She sees them coming again a few nights later on another sleepless night and so she sprints back to the controls, takes off, and flies around looking for a new, isolated place to land, once again hoping that she was not followed. But she was. This pattern continues for the rest of the cycle. Lucretia lands, gets a few days of respite, she sees them coming, she escapes, and the pattern continues.

  
She has never been so stressed in her life and she is so exhausted all the time. She has never gotten a good night's sleep during this cycle, and she barely manages to sleep. She is lucky to get 3 hours of sleep a night, but even when she is asleep, it's not restful. It's plagued by nightmares. She is barely eating, and when she does manage to eat, it's ramen or a protein bar.  
As the pattern continues, Lucretia feels so, so alone. She has always liked being alone, but never like this. She has gotten so used to the constant companionship of her crew members, her family, that having all of them gone and feeling this ever present loneliness is crushing her.

  
She spends all of her free time studying the ship, the controls, the repairs she has done or checking to see if there are any repairs that she will need to make. She needs to be constantly prepared for when she has to leave again.

She has not thought of the Light of Creation at all during this cycle except in passing thought. She doesn't know where it is, but someone probably has it and she does not have the manpower to retrieve it or the safety net of if something would happen to her.

That's another thing that stresses her out so much. She doesn’t know what happened to her family. They got taken, and she can only assume they died. And even if they are not, they surely would not be able to find her or make it back to the ship. She has flown all around the plane, and has gone to so many places that it would be hard to track her down.  
Plus, she has to stay alive for them. They are relying on her to get out of this plane. She is their last hope currently and she cannot let them down.

As time goes on, her hair has gotten in her way as she is studying various parts of the ship, and tying it back is not enough for her. So she gets up, goes to the bathroom, grabs the shaver, and shaves her head. She shaves it short so that there is barely any hair left. She quickly gives herself a look over in the mirror, and thinks to herself, ‘this is a lewk, Taako and Lup would approve.’ She quickly shuts that train of thought down, because if she thinks about them any longer, she will have a breakdown and she does not have time for that. She has things to do. She continues working, researching, and most importantly running. She never stops running. She would run before she saw someone coming. She can’t risk it. She can’t get caught.

  
She did almost get caught once. Almost. But she fought. She fought the hardest she ever did. She managed to win, but she got hurt. But she managed to heal herself, and she continued running. She vowed she would never get that close to being captured again. She does not think she would survive if she got caught.

  
Finally, the cycle is coming to an end. Lucretia hopes that she and one ever has to do a cycle alone. It was the worst case scenario that none of them had even thought could happen and so therefore they were not prepared for a cycle like this. No one thought they would have to do a whole cycle alone. Lucretia hoped none of them would have to do this the way she did.

  
And the cycle is finally coming to an end and her family would be back. As long as she could fly the Starblaster out of this plane. She goes to the controls to pilot the ship out of the plane as the Hunger starts coming down, but before she leaves, she sees a large group of people coming. She quickly starts the ship’s engines, and takes off into the sky, feeling no loss for this plane as the Hunger begins to ravage the land.

  
She pilots the ship with a newly practiced ease that she wishes she didn't have and feels the ship exiting the plane and entering the new one.

  
She continues to fly the ship until she senses her family’s return behind her. She turns, sees them. And collapses against the bridge, tears escaping her eyes and she says, “I made it. I made it. They tracked me down and I got away on the ship but they kept following, for a year I ran and I hid and I had to fight, and I had to repair the ship in secret, I had to learn how to repair the ship I was the only one. If I died too, I don’t even know how to fly the ship, I fucking made it.”

  
She slides to the ground, sobs exploding out of her body, causing her whole body to shake with the force of the sobs. Her family surrounds and they form a cuddle pile right there in the control room and she desperately hopes she never has to feel that alone again.

  
Of course, that is not how it works out, but that time it was her choice.


End file.
